


I Won

by Dreamin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-The Final Problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 13:26:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13388763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamin/pseuds/Dreamin
Summary: What if the phone call had lasted just a moment longer?





	I Won

**Author's Note:**

> I kept wondering what TFP would have been like if Molly had heard Sherlock say, "Eurus, I won" after Eurus had disconnected the call. This is the result.

“Eurus, I won … I won.”

_What the hell?!_ Molly stared at her mobile in disbelief. _I just poured out my heart to him and it was for A BET?! That’s it, I’m done! He can find someone else to bend over backwards for him._

* * *

Sherlock jumped out of the cab before it had even stopped. John was calling his name but he just waved him off. The cab drove away as he ran up the front steps of Molly’s little house. All the lights inside were off but that didn’t matter. Pulling out the key she had given him, he unlocked the door and tried to open it, only for the door to open just a couple of inches before it collided with something heavy.

_What the… The deacon’s bench, that’s the closest heavy object. She’s keeping me out…_ He desperately tried the door again. It still wouldn’t budge. “Molly?” Sherlock called out, hearing his growing panic leak into his voice. “Molly, please, let me in…”

“Why should I?” came her tired, bitter voice from the other side of the door. “You won your bet with Eurus, whoever he is. You got me to say the one thing I never thought I’d say to you. Congratulations, now fuck off.”

_Eurus? Bet?_ He could feel the blood leave his face as he realized what she must have heard. _“Eurus, I won.” Fuck… I can’t let her believe that a second longer._ “Molly! It wasn’t a bet!”

“Don’t lie to me!”

_I’ve never heard her this angry._ “Molly, please!” He back up a couple of steps then tried to kick the door open. A loud bang as the door hit the deacon’s bench was his only reward. _Perhaps I can appeal to her sensible side._ “The neighbors are going to hear all this noise and call the police.”

“Good, then you can explain to Greg why I’m cutting you out of my life.”

_Not that! Anything but that!_ “Molly!”

“Go to hell, Sherlock.”

He kept pounding his already-aching hands on the door and shouting her name but she didn’t respond. Desperation kept him going for what seemed like hours, but she never opened the door.

* * *

The next morning, Molly pulled the deacon’s bench back into its original position then she cautiously opened the door, finding Sherlock curled into a fetal position on her welcome mat, asleep. Despite the events of the previous day, her heart went out to him like it always did.

“Sherlock?” she asked softly.

He woke up then immediately got to his feet. “Molly, please, listen to me.” Between the desperation in his eyes and his rumpled and dirty clothes, she felt her heart softening.

She sighed quietly and tried to stay angry but she knew she was fighting a losing battle. “What else is there to say? You made me tell you how I feel then you told Eurus, whoever he is, that you won. It doesn’t take a genius to know you had a bet going.”

“You have it all wrong,” he said vehemently then he took a deep breath and added, calmer, “Please, may I come in?”

Molly silently stood aside as he came in then she noticed his bandaged hands as he took off his Belstaff. “Sherlock … what happened to your hands?”

“That doesn’t matter right now,” he said firmly. “All that matters is you knowing the truth about what I said.”

She swallowed hard. “Fine. Something tells me this is going to take a lot of coffee.” She walked to the kitchen, Sherlock right behind her.

He hovered at her elbow while she made two large cups – one black, two sugars and one white, three sugars. When they were seated across from each other at the peninsula, she took a fortifying sip of her coffee then looked at him.

“How much was the bet?” she asked evenly. “Please tell me it was more than **£** 20 – I like to think my emotional well-being is worth more than that.”

Sherlock wrapped both hands around his cup, his eyes on the coffee. “I told you, it wasn’t a bet,” he said quietly.

“‘Eurus, I won.’ There’s nothing else that could-”

“It was a game,” he said quietly, finally meeting her eyes. “A sick, sick game devised by my criminally insane sister.”

She stared at him. “You don’t have a sister.”

“That’s what I thought too.” He then explained everything, every vivid, excruciating detail. “I did it to save your life,” he said finally. “The cost was two broken hearts and a friendship that will never recover, but that was far better to me than your death.”

Molly looked down at her now-cold coffee for a moment she stared at him. “You meant it. When I asked you to say it like you meant it … you really did mean it.”

He nodded. “It should have been easy for me to say – you only had seconds to live and it was the only thing you wanted. I struggled with saying it the first time because I knew how much the words meant to you but as soon as they left my mouth, I realized how true they were. I loved you.” He tentatively laid his bandaged hand over hers. “I love you. I’ll never stop loving you, just like I’ll never stop apologizing for yesterday.”

She managed a small smile. “I think you can stop.” She leaned closer and murmured, just before kissing the lips she had fantasized about for so long, “Both of us have won, Sherlock.”

* * *

In an undisclosed location, Mycroft Holmes watched from his mobile as his younger brother and future sister-in-law shared their first kiss.

“I thought you had remotely disabled the cameras in her kitchen,” Anthea remarked, smirking, as she watched over his shoulder.

“I wanted to be sure he didn’t muck it up.” He looked up at her. “It’s not every day that a man gets a second chance with the woman he loves.”

“That’s true.”

For the first time in his life, Mycroft hesitated, then he asked as casually as he could, “Would you care to join me for lunch, my dear?”

Her pleased smile was all the answer he needed.


End file.
